Does Haslett know talent?

this is a discussion within the Saints Community Forum; So the last 4 games of the season the Saints kicked butt. Two rookie linebackers got put in, through necessity, and really make a difference. Two new cornerbacks got put in as starters and really made a difference. So why ...

So the last 4 games of the season the Saints kicked butt. Two rookie linebackers got put in, through necessity, and really make a difference. Two new cornerbacks got put in as starters and really made a difference. So why not sooner? I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Haslett is too slow to pull a veteran, but even more, way too leary of putting in rookies or other players. So why is that? We see Cowher and other coaches pull and year after year have pretty good teams. So do you think that Haslett can evaluate talent correctly and then make the game day changes that need to be done to have a winning football team?

Well, my short answer isn\'t going to be so short. As far as Venturi, I really think Haslet\'s hands are tied and he CANNOT do anything.

Otherwise, I think Haslet is a good talent evaluator, but is probably getting tied up by the pressure. You ever play stock market games and do real well and wonder why you can\'t do the same with real money? It\'s a similar thing....when the bullets are real haslet chokes a bit on the decision making.

now, the closer his butt gets to the fire, the easier it\'ll be for him to make decisions that he has resisted out of loyalty or favoritism which is why we saw Brown at starting CB.

Well hopefully his butt is to the fire now, during free agency, during the draft, during training camp, during pre-season, and during the season so we can continue to see decisions he doesn\'t always make happen. If what he was doing wasn\'t working, the opposite has to right?

Hey, leave Bobby alone. lol I love the Braves. And he did put Andrew and LaRoche in as rookie. It\'s not his fault he works for penny-pinching tight wads who want to have a winning team with a sub-par payroll.

Penny pinching? You\'ve got to be kidding me. There payroll throughout the 90\'s were around 100mil. They have had there hands tied lately because Andruw, Chipper, Smoltz, Hampton... command a huge percentage of their payroll which is still above 80mil. There isn\'t much room to make free agent acquistitions because the fact that they need to resign Hudson, give Giles a HUGE contract extension, and I would think Estrada deserves one too. Not everyone can be the Yankees. None the less, Braves rock year in and year out. Doesn\'t matter how tight their payroll gets, they have one of the richest farm systems in the league. Not to mean the BEST general manager and manager in the business.

If our scouting system, gm, and coach can get anything close to the class of the Braves organization... nah nevermind. That\'s like hitting the powerball.

Ia m not talking about their 90s Ted turner payroll(of which they should have won more titles). I am speaking of the current ownership of the organization, where we have to lose players like Sheffield and Javy Lopez and drew cause ownership doesn\'t wanna pay. Like I said I love the braves so you don\'t have to tell me about how well they do. But you can only do good with so little for so long. They need to break the bank for one more superstar to get over the top and they won\'t do it. Now theyhave freaking Mondesi and washed up Brian Jordan in the outfield. Just sad.

I think Mondesi will be fine. Javy left Atlanta and now we have a great catcher in Estrada which saved us 10 plus million a year. That was a good move since Javy didn\'t do squat in Baltimore. Sheffield signed an enormous contract with the Yankees in which we couldn\'t afford. They tried but couldn\'t make ends meet. We signed Drew, traded for Eli, and promoted Thomas. They didn\'t miss a beat.

Break the bank for another superstar? Hello, how much do you think Tim Hudson\'s contract will be. We need to save money to sign him and Marcus Giles to long term deals. One more superstar will along with these pending free agents will push their payroll WELL above 110 mil. Why do that if they will get the same results? Signed Sheffield and we didn\'t get anywhere. Had Lopez at least 8 years, didn\'t win a World series either. They know what they are doing and did the right thing by acquiring Hudson, the superstar you are asking for.

If you love the Braves as much as I do, then you would know Jeff Francoeur (top 3 outfield prospect in the game) and Andy Marte (top hitting prospect in the game) are almost ready. They are two ofthe BEST prospects in the game. One will be at Double A and the other will push for major league time this year. Plus Ryan Langerhans another promising prospect will platoon with Jordan (yes, he\'s going downhill) and should be as good or better than Charles Thomas was for us last year.

This is gonna be moved to off topic so we will talk as long as we can. I should have said superstar outfielder. We WILL NOT be fine with Modesi and Jordan. Have you seen their contributions the past few years? Tragic. I love the fact we got Hudson and almost flipped, but he\'s one guy. We built the team on pitching in the 90s but WE DO NOT have close to or equal to that rotation. So one superstar pitcher amongst so-so guys(as amazing as Leo Mazzone is) ain\'t really ringing my bell.

And I like Estrada too. He impressed the hell out of me withthe way he hit and defended. I am not knocking that, but Jave coulda moved to first or something. I like LaRoche too but he wasn\'t overly impressive to me. And the Braves could have worked something out with Sheffield BEFORE the Yanks stoel him away. They chose not to. Didn;t even make him an offer during the season or after. They just gave up. As good as he did in New York, I think we could have used him. I think we could have used Drew too. And I liked Thomas, but I understand he had to go to get what we got.

I am not gonna pretend like I know anything about the farm system so I will take your word for it on that. But with Chipper ho-humming half the year and with Andruw steadily substituting power for speed, we could have used a big bat this off-season. I am sure we will have no problem winning the division again though, even with the Mets signings.